Why is everyone saying ‘not me’ at the start of a sentence?

Have you noticed recently that people have started saying “not me” at the beginning of a sentence? If yes and you have no idea why, then don’t fear as you are most likely not alone.

Yet another phrase coined by Generation-Z, ‘not me’ is a way of teasing others or yourself for embarrassing or inappropriate behaviour. For example, if you said, “not me watching Twilight alone for the third night in a row,” that’s another way of saying you most certainly did gently weep at the scene of Bella staring out the window for months while Possibility by Lykke Li softly plays – and you’re low-key ashamed of it.

So, in other words, whatever you say you’re not doing, thinking, or feeling, you are in fact doing. This highly addictive phrase also comes in different variations such as, “not you”, “not us: and “not them”.

Here are some examples if you’re still not following:

So, here, Martinez is definitely watching The Notebook for the countless time and is slightly cringing at herself. I bet the scene where Noah (Ryan Gosling) single-handedly renovated the crumbling house into Allie’s (Rachel McAdams) dream home had her in floods of tears. I mean who can blame her? The man is a romantic king.

In this example, Ani is very embarrassed that she’s been crying over the cringey American franchise High School Musical. I wonder which track it was? Was it the heart-wrenching breakup ballad Gotta Go My Own Way between Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) and Troy (Zac Efron) from High School Musical 2 or the couple’s classic duet Breaking Free from the debut film? We will never know.

Here, we all know her (and the rest of Twitter) have been 100% weeping at Billie Eilish’s highly anticipated second album, Happier Than Ever.

Again, who can blame her?

So, there we have it. Everyone understand? Not me...